It is also a common notion that not only are the stains of human blood wrongfully shed ineffaceable, but a curse lights upon the ground, causing it to remain barren for ever.  There is, for instance, a dark-looking piece of ground devoid of verdure in the parish of Kirdford, Sussex.  Local tradition says that this was formerly green, but the grass withered gradually away soon after the blood of a poacher, who was shot there, trickled down on the place.  But perhaps the most romantic tale of this kind was that known as the “Field of Forty Footsteps.”  A legendary story of the period of the Duke of Monmouth’s Rebellion describes a mortal conflict which took place between two brothers in Long Fields, afterwards called Southampton Fields, in the rear of Montague House, Bloomsbury, on account of a lady who sat by.  The combatants fought so furiously as to kill each other, after which their footsteps, imprinted on the ground in the vengeful struggle, were reported “to remain, with the indentations produced by their advancing and receding; nor would any grass or vegetation grow afterwards over these forty footsteps.”  The most commonly received version of the story is, that two brothers were in love with the same lady, who would not declare a preference for either, but coolly sat upon a bank to witness the termination of a duel which proved fatal to both.  Southey records this strange story in his “Commonplace Book,"[29] and after quoting a letter from a friend, recommending him to “take a view of those wonderful marks of the Lord’s hatred to duelling, called ‘The Brothers’ Steps,’” he thus describes his own visit to the spot:  “We sought for near half an hour in vain.  We could find no steps at all within a quarter of a mile, no, nor half a mile, of Montague House.  We were almost out of hope, when an honest man, who was at work, directed us to the next ground adjoining to a pond.  There we found what we sought, about three-quarters of a mile north of Montague House and five hundred yards east of Tottenham Court Road.  The steps are of the size of a large human foot, about three inches deep, and lie nearly from north-east to south-west.  We counted only twenty-six; but we were not exact in counting.  The place where one or both the brothers are supposed to have fallen is still bare of grass.  The labourer also showed us the bank where, the tradition is, the wretched woman sat to see the combat.”  Miss Porter and her sister founded upon this tragic romance their story, “Coming Out, or the Field of Forty Footsteps”; and at Tottenham Street Theatre was produced, many years ago, an effective melodrama based upon the same incident, entitled “The Field of Footsteps.”

Another romantic tale of a similar nature is connected with Montgomery Church walls, and is locally designated “The Legend of the Robber’s Grave,” of which there are several versions, the most popular one being this:  Once upon a time, a man was said to have been wrongfully hanged at Montgomery; and, when the rope was round his neck, he declared in proof of his innocence that grass would never grow on his grave.  Curious to relate, be the cause what it may, there is yet to be seen a strip of sterility—­in the form of a cross—­amidst a mass of verdure.[30]